Technology...

I hate technology. The Red Queen and Cream Puff were treated to a laugh festival as Portman worked from home yesterday. He started on a video conference call yelling into the computer "Hey can anyone hear me. This is Gary in Rochester. Anyone at all. HELLO...." No one could hear me because my computer microphone was not set up correctly.

My work did not go well either, with my programs plagued by bugs, which gets Portman very frustrated. Time to take a break and hook up that new flat screen and audio system. Well I could not get the sound to work so after 3 failed attempts to get the company Tech support on the phone (I used my cell phone for that call) I finally reached someone in India who spoke with such a thick accent I could not understand them. I managed to understand enough words to get the sound working, but I put the cell phone back in my pocket without hanging up, because about an hour later I hear this noise from my pocket.  I take out the phone and say hello and he says "Sir.. did you get it working yet?". Well there goes 80 prime cell phone minutes down the drain... and people are still calling me sir!

So I go to fix my computer microphone and the setup tells you to speak a specific phrase into the computer, "Peter piper picked a pepper ..." So the RQ and CP are laughing hysterically at me as I shout this into my computer.

I think tomorrow I will chop some wood or dig a ditch, anything that does not require a computer a cell phone or talking to someone in India.

Ski Terre Haute

A thrilling 700 ft vertical drop over a 2 mile run!

Boom Boom ...

The following message showed up in my gmail! No I don't want to chat! Although I am intrigued!

Te'o Explained

1) A dude pretending to be a chick starts an online affair with another dude.

2) Despite never having met this chick (I mean dude) in person, the second dude falls in love with her (I mean him).

3) Realizing he has gone too far, the first dude ends the relationship by faking the fake chics death

4) Even when the second dude finds out he has been dupped, he continues to pretend that the whole fake affair was real.

So what we have here is one dude faking a fake relationship with another dude who ends up faking he was never faked in the first place, get it!

As you would expect the whole affair garners a huge amount of national media attention due to the importance of this matter.

Going Postal

I am as pissed off at the old Lance as anyone, but watching the 60 minutes episode last Sunday I have to question the emphasis Travis Tygart placed on Lance defrauding the Federal Government and the American Taxpayers out of $10 million dollars, which he received in sponsorship from the Postal Service. 

Now lets put this in a little perspective, the annual budget for the postal service is $70,000 million dollars!  That's 70 billion with a B dollars. We all should be appalled that Lance wasted 0.014% of the Postal services revenue. I bet its costing us more to prosecute him than he "defrauded" us of in the first place. And lets examine this word "defraud", he wore the friggin jersey and people bought more stamps! Should the postal service now return 0.014% of the postage I paid when Lance was riding for the Postal Service Team because it was a sham.

Its funny that in the same episode of 60 minutes President Barack Obama said someone somewhere inside the federal government is screwing up right now. Probably wasting $10 million dollars of the taxpayer money everyday. Should Travis Tygart go search them out and prosecute them? All I know is he better return the few fractions of pennies Lance owes me.

Happy New Year Photo Shoot

I usually pick one photo for our holiday /new years family card. However this year, one particular family member who will remain named Carrot Chopper decided to ham it up and strike a few poses for the camera. So I posted the entire shoot because its so hilarious. Click on the photos and blow em up they are funny.

We need to rethink our priorities...

When we spend New Years Eve at a sausage fest instead of with our beautiful girl friends...Speaking of sausage fests, the guy on the far left may want to close up shop a little.

You might live in a snowy climate....

If the guy behind you at the gas station is driving a snow mobile.
The Prius gets better mileage however.

and I forgot to mention..

On our property we have a pine tree grove with lots of trees which are being crowded out. So one year I decided to prune a couple  for our Christmas trees. One of the trees was really thin and had a crooked trunk and my family made fun of me for bringing home a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

....Well Merry Christmas Charlie Brown... and everyone is still calling me SIR..Good Grief...

My life as a Charlie Brown Comic Strip

Lately my life resembles a Charlie Brown comic strip

This is my career

This is my love life

And this is Cream Puff who is now referring to me as sir...Good Grief.

The solution to the budget crisis

No, the big mac is not the solution to the budget crisis, eliminating it is. Health care accounts for 21% of the federal budget. This is going to continue to grow in the coming years. I heard a startling statistic the other day. In the not so distance future 1 in 2 Americans will have diabetes or pre-diabetes.  What can we do? We can stop eating fast food for one thing, then get off your butts and exercise for another. I believe that fast food is so damaging to our health that packages should carry warning labels like cigarettes. 

 

 This label says "The product you are about to enjoy is extremely harmful if swallowed."  The packaging should also contain pictures of what will happen to you if you eat the food, like the one below. This is similar to the diseased lung pictures on cigarettes (Oh those are only Canadian cigarettes).

Who could enforce such a campaign, the food and drug administration, the same entity which allows cigarettes to continue to be sold. I guess if it kills you quickly its bad, but if it kills you slowly wasting taxpayer money in the process, its OK.

Sometimes, the smallest thing can take you down

Above is the item which caused my house to have no heat. The black thing on the left not the penny you fool. That small piece of rubber which cracked and caused the safety pressure switch to not see any exhaust pressure and shut off the furnace. Sometimes it worked but sometimes it did not. Mostly it did not. How did I figure this out? First I noticed that the house was cold and the thermostat was calling for heat but the furnace was off. Then I started trying to turn on the furnace by cranking up the thermostat. This furnace worked for the first 3 times I tried this on different occasions. On the fourth time the furnace flame failed to light and I happened to notice a little red light inside the furnace blinking 3 times, this must be telling me something. So off I went to consult the keeper of all knowledge, the passing fad known as the internet. I am getting pretty good with my google search terms and I get very disappointed if the answer is not in the first hit. And this time I did not disappoint myself and there it was a full explanation and 73 page service manual included with a reference to the problem and how to fix it, a clogged nipple (sounds painful but its a furnace not a human body part). Unfortunately, this do not fix my problem, for this I blame google. Although it did point me in the right direction. On my second attempt to check all parts of the system the little piece of hose above happened to fall off while I was disassembling the system. Voila, a cracked hose. I crown myself king of home repair and google search wizardry.

Anti Monkey Butt

The only thing worse than a bad case of Swamp Ass is a bad case of Monkey Butt. However, my local pharmacy has the remedy. That is one happy Monkey!

Crock O' Crap

Sometimes you see something just too crazy to be true. If its in an advertisement, you can rest assured, it certainly is not. Recently, in a national publication, I saw and ad containing the senseless dribble normally reserved for corporate press releases.

The Amish are not, I repeat are not, a preferred supplier to Sears. They do not manufacturer and deliver electric appliances in their horse and buggies to Sears stores as throngs of giddy shoppers wait in line to buy an appliance which can heat their house while using the energy of a coffee maker. This is not true. Yet it is allowed to be printed in millions of newspaper nationwide.

When we see crap like this, we as citizens need to yell, "Crock of Crap" or "Crock of Sh**" if you like. But we don't swear here at maketheface (especially at the Amish) we only point out social irresponsibility.